Francis Lee's 'Ammonite' to close 64th BFI London Film Festival

Tricia Tuttle, BFI London Film Festival director said it was a pleasure to have Lee close the Festival with his second feature. "Francis has the ability to place love stories of breathtaking intimacy within a rich socio-political context, always with a delicate touch, and here offers reflections on class difference and the erasure of women from scientific history," she added.

Period romance "Ammonite", directed by Francis Lee, will bring down the curtains on the 64th British Film Institute London Film Festival, the festival organisers announced on Wednesday. Starring Kate Winslet and Saoirse Ronan, the film will have its UK premiere on October 17 and will be available to the audiences at cinemas across the country.

Set in a UK coastal town in the 1820s, "Ammonite" follows an unlikely romance between palaeontologist-passionate fossil collector Mary Anning (Winslet) and a London woman of means (Ronan) to whom she must unexpectedly play nursemaid. Billed as a heartfelt love-story and an examination of gender, class and society, the film brings to life in vivid detail the life of a woman unappreciated in her own time. Anning, who grew up in poverty in the Lyme Regis, the county of Dorset in Southwest England, was a pioneering paleontologist and passionate fossil collector whose findings contributed to changes in scientific thinking around the prehistory of the Earth. She was named as one of the most influential women in British scientific history by the Royal Society after her death.

"I'm thrilled Ammonite has been chosen to close the BFI London Film Festival. In these incredibly difficult times, it’s wonderful to see this film about intimacy, love and hope getting its UK premiere at LFF," Lee, who is best known for "God's Own Country", said in a statement. Tricia Tuttle, BFI London Film Festival director said it was a pleasure to have Lee close the Festival with his second feature.

"Francis has the ability to place love stories of breathtaking intimacy within a rich socio-political context, always with a delicate touch, and here offers reflections on class difference and the erasure of women from scientific history," she added. The Festival, which takes place from October 7 to 18, will open with another true-life period story in Steve McQueen's "Mangrove".

"Ammonite" is slated to release in theatres in 2021..